Close, But No Cigar

You’ve had enough politics for a while, right? That’s what Mercy thought too. But the morning after the Nobama speech, there was a knock on her door. A knock on her actual door. Must be a neighbor. She dragged herself out of bed, slipped a striped tent over her head and went to answer.

It’s the gay couple upstairs. Two women, one black and one white, and the white one is crying. She’s an Alice-in-Wonderland look-alike. Mercy finds her quite attractive, though she would never get involved with such a needy female as Felicia. Donna, on the other hand, was just her type. Practical, self-sufficient, strong, and handy around the house. She gave Mercy a “nothing I can do about it” shrug of the eyebrow, and followed Felicia through the jungle, into the heart of Africa, where a sniffling Felicia folded her languid limbs and spiraled down to a stool. She looked up at Mercy with watered blue eyes, and said, “Mercy, how can you be so mean?”

“Mean?” What was this? The Livingstons weren’t political. They didn’t care one way or another about Obama. The Livingstons were truly post-racial. They thought it was a joke to make such a big deal out of outer qualities. Donna loved Felicia’s vanilla hue, and Felicia loved Donna’s dark chocolate.

“Mean,” she said, lowering her head so her hair hung down to the floor, then turning it left and right. “Mean, mean, mean, mean, mean.”

“She has her period,” Donna explained. “She wants to get married. It happens every month. Like her innards think she lost a child and has to start a new one, and getting married is the first step. She’s an old-fashioned girl.”

So old-fashioned that they called themselves the Livingstons. Felicia took Donna’s last name after they’d been living together for five years. Felicia came from an old-line family who no longer spoke to her. She claimed to despise their values, but those values were in at a very deep level.

Ms. and Mrs. Livingston issued invitations to their parties. But legally, Felicia had a choice of Ms. or Miss. What she wanted was Mrs. “I want my love to be just as shiny as everyone else’s,” she said.

Mercy sat down on a stool next to her. “You make it shiny,” she said, “not anybody else.”

Felicia jumped up. “Oh no, that’s not true. The word ‘lover’ has a totally different tone than ‘husband’, or ‘wife’. One is legitimate, the other isn’t. People don’t send anniversary cards to unmarried couples. They don’t think they’re real.”

“Felicia, why do you even want to have this thing that half the people who get it are so anxious to be rid of?” Mercy was clearly, sincerely puzzled. “Why aren’t you proud that you’re doing something different, because you want to, not because it’s expected of you? That’s the beauty of being gay. It’s your own choice, not society’s. Why do you want to get the government involved?”

Felicia laughed scornfully. “I want the same thing everybody else has. I want people to celebrate with me. I want to sign up for mutual belonging to a life-long companion. I want the world to witness our commitment.”

Donna came to life on the zebra rug. “Don’t you know what that’s for, honey? That’s so I won’t run out on you. Everyone is gathered together to have you point to me and say, ‘This is the person who’s is going to take care of me forever, and if she doesn’t, I want you to come after her with the courts.’ That’s what it’s for. Why do you want that? Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I do. That has nothing to do with it. There’s something safe and secure about being married that has nothing to do with the person you’re married to. You’re part of the same deal everybody else is.”

She turned back to Mercy. “I want to have a family. Just like everybody else.”

Mercy shook her head. “You can’t. Not with you and your partner’s genes.”

Felicia’s straightened up on her stool. “Oh yes, I can. Not only can I, but I’ve got it all arranged. Donna’s brother is going to supply the sperm. We’re going to a clinic. They take his sperm and slip it into me, and if the timing’s right, and it should be, I’ll become pregnant with the closest thing I can to Donna’s DNA. And Donna says she doesn’t want to, but I’ve got a brother too. Two of them. We could have children with a mixture of both our genetics, and each of us can have our own biological child.”

Mercy was stunned. “That sounds about as close as you can get,” she said, “but each of you is the aunt of the other one’s child – that makes you sisters, not spouses. Close, but no cigar. And that is my point. There is no cigar between you. There must be one – no more, no less – one cigar in every marriage.”

She stood up, an almost angry look on her face. “There’s more than love involved in marriage. And there’s more than love involved in children. There are men and women in this world, and every child deserves an example of each in his parents. A child is entitled to see how both sexes live.”

Felicia gasped. “How can you say that? And you’re black! You know what it’s like to be discriminated against.”

“I know what it’s like to be discriminated against for being what I am. Not for not being what I’m not. Nobody is discriminating against you for being gay. They are simply saying you can’t marry your same-sex, excuse me, lover. They’re saying you can’t be what you are not. You are not a man and a woman. You are two women.”

“What the difference!” Felicia yelled.

Mercy’s lips pursed hard. Then she said, “Now that might be the problem, right there. You go find out. And now, ladies, I’ve had a tough night. I’m going back to bed. She indicated the way out of the heart, they took it, and Mercy went back to sleep.

In another part of the proverbial town, another drama is unfolding. Danielle has relented on meeting Jason at the apartment. There’s a new development and she’s feeling quite urgent.

I warn you, ladies and gentlemen, never let one worry confound your handling of another. No good can come of it. Keep them separate.

It’s a serious talk they’re about to have, but as the moment draws nearer, Danielle automatically seeks the comfort of body language. They’re sitting in the kitchen, her chair is very close to his, and when she leans over to make a point, her breasts precede her. Jason is tantalized, but he’s also afraid. He’s expecting bad news.

He doesn’t know the half of it.

Now she’s working her index finger around in his ear, as she whispers, “Come and take a little walk down the hall with me.” She stands, and he gets up, his ear following her finger. They walk down the hall with their arms around each other, like they did that very first time. So long ago, it seems.

Jason is melting. Danielle is trepidacious. She has a big surprise for him. She doesn’t know how he’s going to take it. Two big surprises. One is worse than the other. She’s just not quite sure which one.

As they are about to pass a door that is always closed when he’s there, Danielle halts and Jason almost falls forward.

“Here we are,” she says, and very slowly opens the door. It discloses a red and blue room. Red walls, blue bedspread. A desk, book shelves, an aquarium, a globe, a baseball glove, Legos… a kid’s room. Yeah, so whaaaaat? He can’t ask it. He can’t form the question.

“Timmy’s room. My son.”

Thunder booms in his head. Cymbals crash. Noise to take away what’s just been put on the table. But no, he can see it’s true. The scribbled up math problems come into view. The jacket tossed hap-hazardly in the corner, the precision line-up of tiny cars. It’s a kid’s room, all right. A boy’s. What’s that she said? Her son’s?

Can you imagine the force with which this son enters Jason’s universe? Crashes into his life? He’s got no face yet, no personality. A creature that came out of the place that Jason’s been going into. Jason feels crowded.

He doesn’t think he even wants to hear about this boy. He pulls away from Danielle, but she can’t let him go before they get to part two. So she comes after him. “What’s the matter?” she asks. “Does that make me somebody different?”

Is that a guffaw, we hear, Jason?

He says, “It sure does. It makes you somebody’s mother.”

“So’s your wife,” she counters, trying to hold him with argument.

“Yes, but Brenda’s the mother of my children, not somebody else’s.”

Uh-uh, Jason. You just slipped. Big time.

Danielle’s eyes narrow. “Brenda?” she asks. “As in Brenda Shapiro? That baby-killer who’s running for congress? That’s your WIFE? The woman in the diner with Clyde?”

He feels like Jim Morrison in the Doors movie when his wife points to his girlfriend and says, “You’re sticking your dick into that?” He feels the sheepish look on Morrison’s face, on his own.

“Yeah,” he half-laughs with Morrison.

And receives for it a hard, insulting slap across his face.

So folks… who do you think had the worst secret? Who told more of a lie?

They stand there glaring at each other. Then, with no sympathy for his wounded brain and smarting face, Danielle tells him, “I haven’t had my period in two months.”